


A Brief History of American Magic

by eesbegovic



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: Actually This Could Be Fanfic For Almost Any Urban Fantasy Story, American Civil War, American History, EGS But With Politics, Gen, Headcanon, Narrator As Easter Egg, POV Second Person, Politics, [Fandom] But With Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29151765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eesbegovic/pseuds/eesbegovic
Summary: In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and "discovered" a continent that the Native Americans had been living in, and practicing magic in, for millenia.  How does one get from there to the present day, where magic is run by a government that's barely three centuries old?ORThe freaking new guy says something dumb, and gets lectured by their long-suffering mentor.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	A Brief History of American Magic

**Author's Note:**

> I have in mind a specific character for the narrator, and tried to do the solvable-mystery thing where that character is guessable from hints in the work. But the tale works just as well whoever is narrating it.

Hey. I want to circle back to the meeting this morning. Do you, uh, remember when Kivistik described how our mission is to unify the European magical community? And you commented “just like the American magical community is?”

And nobody visibly reacted?

That’s our way of cringing during important meetings. 

“The American magical community” is our worst-case scenario. Magical Europe is a rich tapestry of secret societies with unique histories and beautiful cultures, but magical America is a soul-crushing bureaucracy. A lot of us used to work there. I used to work there. We all hated it, and we all left for a reason. In Europe we have our political intrigues and our vicious infights, but I still prefer things on this side of the pond.

I’m- I’m referring to how the “American magical community” is just an arm of the U.S. federal government. And how it became an arm of the U.S. federal government. You know the history there, right?

You don’t? Oh man! I love telling this story, so settle down.

I’m about to tell you a brief history of American magic.

It’s history that starts in the year 1492, when Columbus sailed -- no, that’s not quite right. Really, it’s a history that began thousands of years ago, when mankind first crossed the Bering Strait and settled the Americas. Those settlers brought magic with them.

And then in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He and his descendants systematically sponged, purged, and blasted the Indians' oral and written records, and we know almost nothing about the  _ true  _ history of American magic.

The history of the  _ white man's _ American magic begins in the early seventeenth century. The discovery of the New World had led to the greatest land grab in history, but the European magic community hadn’t even noticed. Nobody knew then what promise North America held. All the magical secret societies of Europe were too busy playing their usual political games and trying to win the usual power struggles to care about any so-called "New World."

And then, one day, the Freemasons lost a vicious power struggle against the Societas Eruditorum. Well, not “the Freemasons” -- most Freemasons don’t know about magic. But there was a small faction that did. And they were a well-organized faction within the Freemasons, who kept their mundane colleagues in the dark. And then those Freemasons lost a magical power struggle, and they held an emergency meeting in an anonymous patch of dirt in France, and they decided that having been _crushed by their rivals_ they ought to run very, very far away from Europe. Somebody from England mentioned the Virginia Colony, and all agreed that Virginia seemed as good a place as any to hide from the Societas Eruditorum, its allies, and everyone else who wanted to profit from the downfall of the Freemasons (who knew about magic). 

So they left. Those Freemasons were the first -- no, not the first. Lots of mages had infiltrated various colonies in South America and the Carribean. But the Freemasons -- that is, the Freemasons who knew about magic -- they were the first and only magical secret society to settle the English colonies that eventually became the good old U.S. of A.

There were already mages in the Virginia Colony, of course. The usual mix of people who Awakened for the usual reasons. Those people were isolated and unorganized, and they were overwhelmed by a mass Freemason migration. The Freemasons (who knew about magic) tracked down each and every mage who lived on Virginia Colony land, and very politely asked them to join their secret society. 

Or else.

It took the Freemasons-who-knew-about-magic less than a decade to establish a monopoly on the practice of magic in Virginia, one veiled threat and unsolvable murder at a time.

After locking down Virginia, the Freemasons-who-knew-about-magic spread north to New England and south to Georgia. By the dawn of the eighteenth century, anyone who Awakened in the English colonies had about six months of freedom before a patrol of Freemasons with magic-detecting-spells rolled into their sleepy little village or their bustling city, bringing invitations to the local Freemason lodge backed by threats of “expulsion” for noncompliance.

(“”Expel” was a euphemism for murder. The Freemasons-who-knew-about-magic loved their euphemisms.)

Life was good, for a while. Then, in 1776 -- well, you know.

You don’t? Right, I forgot not everybody learns this in grade school. Sorry about that.

In 1776 the British colonies declared independence. From England. The cabal of rich white guys who ran the Thirteen Colonies decided that they were done being British subjects and started the American Revolution. American life became  _ heated _ . Lots of people were sick and tired of British oppression and supported the Revolution, but lots of people were quite happy being part of the British Empire, thank you very much. And the, uh, Freemasons-who-knew-about-magic... What a mouthful. Let's call them the... 

How about the "Stonecutters"?

In 1776 the Stonecutters called an emergency meeting in the-middle-of-nowhere, North Carolina. They had an important decision to make. Would they side with the Empire, and work to dismantle the burgeoning American state? Or would they side with the Revolution, and undermine the Crown's influence in North America?

Now, many Stonecutters were loyal Englishmen, who abhorred the idea of independence. But many Stonecutters were proud Revolutionaries, who abhorred the idea of English dominance. Weeks of debate, with violent rhetoric and sometimes violent acts, produced no consensus. Eventually, the Stonecutters were forced to make the only compromise they could: do nothing. If the loyalists wouldn’t fight the crown, and the patriots wouldn’t fight the colonies? Then both individually and as a group, the magical community of North America would not participate in the American Revolution. The Stonecutters passed resolutions forbidding their members from aiding either side of the war, and they enshrined into their bylaws what would become their most cherished principle: the Stonecutters do not interfere with mundane politics. The Stonecutters stand above mundane politics. The Stonecutters do not care about mundane politics.

Now, the American Revolution was a bad time to be a Stonecutter. Nobody likes a Neutral Nancy when there’s a war on. But the Stonecutters as an organization survived the war, and they survived the peace that followed.

Time passed. The American government became anxious to “settle” the territories its masters had long forbade it from “settling,” and the country began its drive to Go West. (“Settle” here means moving to lands the Indians had been living in for thousands of years, and using the threat of violence to stake one’s claim.) As the American people moved West, they inevitably brought magic with them -- after all, people Awaken all the time for all sorts of reasons. The Stonecutters realized quickly that they could only maintain their monopoly on magic by joining the drive West. Meetings were called, volunteers were assembled, and Freemason lodges supporting Stonecutter mages were built across the frontier.

But something strange started to happen. The leaders of the Stonecutters had long been the same as the leaders of any sufficiently large group: wealthy, educated, and male. They ran factories and owned plantations. But the people who volunteered to leave everything behind and start anew on the frontier? They were field hands, and dock workers, and day laborers. They were poor, they were ambitious, and they resented a system seemingly designed to push down anyone who wanted to rise up. And they left their homes, and they moved to Tennessee, and to Kentucky, and to Ohio, and they brought the Stonecutter way of life with them.

Sort of.

For example: one of the core Stonecutter tenets was a prohibition on interfering with politics. But if everyone running for president is a Democratic-Republican, is it really “interfering with politics” to make sure your favorite Democratic-Republican wins? Especially if last time the election was stolen from your guy by an old-money New England crypto-Federalist scumbag?

Another example: letter-writing was a major part of Stonecutter culture. The leaders of the Stonecutters wrote incredible volumes of letters to each other. They debated the theory of magic, the history of magic, and the weaknesses of the various magical creatures they would sometimes face. But many settlers of the frontier were illiterate, or at least had difficulty writing, and so they nurtured a culture that wasn’t about theory, debated by mail: it was about practice, hashed out in remote fields and dense forests, far from prying eyes. The Stonecutters out East hid their activities by euphemism: their letters spoke not of immortals but of “our mutual friends,” not of the awakened but of “the well-read,” and not of wizards but “the well-educated”; and so on. The Masons out West hid their activities by obscurity: they did loud stuff far away from the mundane, and blamed periodic  _ accidents _ on the Indians.

By the time the Stonecutter leadership realized what was happening, it was too late. The Stonecutters had divided into two factions: a faction of fine wines and long letters, and a faction of hard moonshine and brutal duels. A faction of wise elders, and a faction of ambitious youngsters. A faction of tradition and opulence, and a faction of innovation and hardship. A Coastal faction, and a Frontier faction.

In happier times, the Coastal Stonecutters would have tapped the practical experience of the Frontier when addressing dangerously violent threats, and the Frontier Stonecutters would have tapped the depth of knowledge of the Coast when addressing bafflingly obscure threats. Instead they came to resent, fear, and hate each other.

(The Perry Expedition occured around this time. It’s not relevant, but I think it’s interesting.)

And then the election of 1860 happened. Abraham Lincoln was elected President, the American South declared independence, and the Civil War was on. The Coastal Stonecutters, with their tradition of standing above politics, weathered the crisis well. Emergency meetings were called in the North and South; all agreed that this War Between the States thing seemed like a big deal, but nothing good could come out of intervening. They kept writing their letters and drinking their wines.

But the Frontier Stonecutters had abandoned those traditions long ago. And so the Northern Frontier Stonecutters met in a snow-covered field in northern Illinois, decided that the South had gone Too Far, and declared that it was their patriotic duty to march south and Teach Them A Lesson. Meanwhile, the Southern Frontier Stonecutters met in a chilly field in central Alabama, decided that the North had gone Too Far, and declared that it was their patriotic duty to march north and Teach Them A Lesson.

On the Coast, Stonecutters wrote letters about where to hold the next, um, I think the word is quinquennial? The next quinquennial Stonecutter convention. But on the Frontier, Stonecutters waged a secret war for the future of the country. 

The Frontier Stonecutter infighting accomplished little more than making a brutal and violent war just a bit bloodier. Any contribution the Northern mages made to the war was quickly undone by their Southern foes, and vice-versa. But while they fought, the Coastal Stonecutters  _ planned _ . 

The 1863 Stonecutter convention was held in Paris. Officially speaking, the city was chosen as neutral ground between North and South. But unofficially? It was chosen because it was incredibly difficult for the Frontier Stonecutters -- poor, mostly incapable of speaking French, and engaged in a miniature civil war of their own -- to get to. 

So the Coastal Stonecutters met in Paris, and reviewed the situation:

  * They were engaged in a decades-long power struggle over the future of American magic.
  * They were united, despite the chaos at home.
  * Their rivals were split down the middle, and actively trying to murder each other.
  * Only a few Frontier Stonecutters attended the Paris Convention, but there were enough to give the proceedings an air of legitimacy.



And so a cabal of prodigious wordsmiths drafted what would become the Paris Accords. 

The Paris Accords stipulated that every year, the Stonecutters would meet in one of the great cities of the original thirteen colonies. (Those thirteen colonies being the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.)

They required every Stonecutter spend at least three months a year in the original thirteen colonies. 

They forbade the practice of magic outside the original thirteen colonies -- except for enforcing the Accords.

The Paris Accords were a declaration of war.

The Coastal Stonecutters knew that their Frontier rivals wouldn't go down without a fight, so they organized themselves into an army. One led by the oldest, wisest, and best-educated of their leaders; one that would sail west, crush the Frontier Stonecutters, and ensure Coastal dominance for years to come. It was a good plan, with only one flaw:

_Nothing_ unites like a common enemy.

When word of the Accords and the Coastal Army leaked to the frontier, bitter enemies became fast friends, cycles of revenge were broken, and years-old grudges were forgiven seemingly (sometimes literally) overnight. If the Coastal Stonecutters wanted a fight? 

_ They would get their fight. _

The Frontier Stonecutters formed an army of their own. One organized around implicit understandings, not formal org charts. One led by the most ambitious and most skilled of its members. One that would march east, crush the Coastal Stonecutters, and ensure Frontier dominance for years to come.

The two armies met on a cold winter day in western Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. Now, as they say, amateurs study tactics; professionals study strategy; experts study logistics. (This is as true for our little cabal as it was for the Stonecutter armies, by the way.) The leadership of the Coastal army spent their youth studying the tactics that Hannibal deployed at Cannae and the Duke of Wellington deployed at Waterloo, but the men who came to lead the Frontier Army spent their youth studying strategy and logistics at West Point. Some had even fought in the invasion of Mexico two decades earlier. (Those former officers really should have been drafted into the Union and Confederate armies, but magic has a way of getting the mundanes to overlook such things.) And frankly, the years they spent fighting each other taught them a thing or two that helped in the fight against Coastal Stonecutters.

And so the Battle of Pittsburgh was a smashing Frontier victory. Hundreds of Coastal Stonecutters surrendered or died in battle, and the remaining thousands fled in a blind panic. They ran off to a dozen great cities, from Boston in the north to New Orleans in the south, and Frontier Stonecutters marched east. The next steps were obvious. Roll into one Coastal bastion at a time, crush the disorganized defenders, and force them -- at gunpoint -- to swear fealty to the Frontier way. 

Enter Harry J. P. E. Verres, the Wizard of Boston. (He wasn’t actually from Boston; he was from the nearby, much less important, city of Lowell. But “the Wizard of Lowell'' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) Now, back then the Northern Coastal Stonecutters had a superstition that letting wizards copy your spells weakened your ability to cast them (ridiculous, I know), so wizards like Harry were treated with fear and suspicion. Shunned by his magical colleagues, Harry abandoned the world of magic to make a living as a mundane. He bounced from career to career, from fighting Indians in the army to tallying inventory as a newspaper clerk to issuing loans as a banker. He always stayed current with his duties as a Stonecutter, but he never felt content with his lot in life. He spent most of the Civil War as a bureaucrat deep within the bowels of the U.S. Department of War, shuffling papers around as part of the complicated process of turning raw saltpeter into mangled corpses.

When the Wizard of Boston heard of the battle of Pittsburgh, he felt a strange stirring within him. He took a day off of work to think about what had happened. 

He realized that every crisis conceals an opportunity. 

He used his magic, and abused his job, to write into existence the United States Army of the Miskatonic, a formation of several thousand troops led by one Gen. H. J. P. E. Verres. (And named after an in-joke he shared with a friend back home.) When his Army was assembled, he marched his troops to the nearby city of Baltimore, where they rounded up about a hundred “rebel sympathizers” -- that is, people known to him to be mages -- and forced them, at gunpoint, to work for Verres.

From Baltimore, the Army of the Miskatonic marched north to Philadelphia, then Harrisburg, New York City, Hartford, Providence, Boston… and it rounded up Stonecutters as it went. His mundane troops were baffled by their duties, but grateful that said duties kept them out of the fighting and dying in that year’s Annual Doomed March on Richmond. So they didn’t ask too many questions. Many Stonecutters resented Verres for launching what can be fairly described as a military coup -- but many feared the Frontier Stonecutters more than they feared the U.S. Federal Government.

Oh, how the mighty fall.

In August of 1864, the Army of the Miskatonic -- with thousands of confused but content mundane soldiers, and hundreds of scared but hopeful Coastal Stonecutters -- departed Boston, Massachusetts, and headed due south. It confronted the Frontier Army in West Virginia. The Frontier Army had more magic, and it had better magic -- but the Army of the Miskatonic had more men, and it had more guns, and it had actual field artillery. The two armies spent weeks maneuvering around each other as summer gave way to fall. Verres tried to force battle on the open plain, where his guns and artillery could work at their best; the Frontier Army tried to force battle in the Appalachian foothills, where they could use their magic to best track and kill Verres’s troops.

But time was on Verres's side. The soldiers of the Frontier Army weren't being paid, and sometimes they weren't even being fed, and more and more deserted every day. (Only to be rounded up by Verres's cavalry scouts.) The Frontier Army became desperate to fight a decisive battle before it fell to pieces. 

On October 19, 1864, the Army of the Miskatonic got bogged down crossing the Ohio river near a town called Wheeling. The Frontier Army decided the time to strike was at hand, and charged the guns of the Miskatonic. Union troops quickly set up their artillery, and with each volley proved something that has only gotten more true as the years pass: artillery guns have a special ability to kill dozens of soldiers in a single moment, one that few can replicate with magic.

(I mean, I can, but I'm kind of a big deal. And I put my magic to  _ work _ \-- I didn’t get my scars fishing.) 

The Frontier troops got within two hundred yards of Verres's artillery, being cut down like so much wheat, before they lost their nerve and ran. They tried to scatter, but the well-oiled machine that was the Army of the Miskatonic rounded them up in their dozens and interned them in ad-hoc concentration camps. The Frontier Army was no more. 

After a few months of campaigning, the Wizard of Boston had assembled the entire American magical community before him. Thousands of men with guns were loyal to him, personally, and would do almost whatever he told them to. What happened next was entirely up to him.

He declared that the Stonecutters were no more.

They served him now. As part of the Army of the Miskatonic.

They spent a few months marching around Union territory -- which, by late 1864, was almost the whole country -- cleaning up various magical messes left unattended during the fighting. The ex-Stonecutters did the dirty work while being watched closely (but not too closely) by Verres's loyal mundane soldiers. Soon after the Civil War ended, but Verres had the clout and the magic to make sure his Army survived the transition to peacetime. America still had monster problems that needed to be solved, and newly-Awakened mages to conscript, and magical accidents to cover up, after all. Not that his bosses knew about any of that.

After a few years of consolidating power, Verres was able to expel the mundanes and run the army as his own personal fiefdom. After a few decades of consolidating power, he was able to hand off his new organization to a trusted subordinate who could keep the machine running, and then retire in peace.

Now do you understand why we don’t want to unite magical Europe the way magical America was united?

Because there is no "American magical community." There's just a group of underpaid and overworked bureaucrats who have been bouncing around the org chart of the United States Federal Government for a century and a half. When I worked there, it was part of the Department of Justice. Officially I was an FBI agent!

Yeah. A badly-underpaid FBI agent, who was better than her colleagues and knew it. I’m glad to be rid of the whole system.

Now listen closely. The American magical community no longer exists, solely because the American government decided to go after it.

Do you remember when magic changed six weeks ago? It did that because it finally gave up on being secret. Any day now, some bureaucrat in the EU is going to notice us and decide that we need to be  _ reorganized _ .

(What is that supposed to-- look, we know why magic changed because we know a guy who was part of that process, OK? There was this whole thing after Pandora snapped; the Will of Magic Itself consulted a few humans on next steps, and someone who was there told me how the discussion went. It was decided that magic had run out of tricks to stay secret in the face of modern technology, and that magic needed to change to prepare for a status quo where it’s no longer a secret.)

We're getting off track.

A century and a half ago, the American government decided to tear down a divided and disunited American magical community -- and within a year, that community ceased to exist. 

The various governments of Europe will get a clue about magic any day now. We’re no more united now than the Stonecutters were back then, but we can't let thousands of years of tradition here in Europe go up in smoke, like they did in America. We can't become just another arm of the European Union.

So chin up, kid. We have work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was brought to you by Yuval Noah Harari, Wait But Why, textbooks with names like "Vanishing Coup" and "Campaigns of the Civil War," and an endless barrel of thoughts about history and political science I chose to process through an EGS fanfic for some reason.
> 
> Also I'm a friggin' history nerd. You're welcome.


End file.
